Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. HOMEPAGE

This is what Level 30 looks like in 'Pokémon GO'

"Pokémon GO" is a phenom, no doubt, but few people have reached the heights that one player reached over the past weekend: level 30!

Advertisement
pokemon go level 30
Imgur/The Pokemon Company

No joke! 

That's after "a solid week straight of playing," according to the player's Reddit thread. Not too shabby, eh?

Unfortunately, getting there is a bit of a challenge.

You may have already noticed your Trainer's slowing level progress. You zipped past level 5 so quickly! You evolved your Jigglypuff into a Wigglytuff! And since then, you've hit new levels at a much slower pace. 

Advertisement

That's how these things work, we're sorry to say — the longer you play "Pokémon GO," and the higher the levels you reach, the more you'll have to do to unlock subsequent levels. Such is the nature of video games and leveling systems! 

The player who reached level 30 already has some interesting things to say about how the game changes as your Trainer reaches such high levels. For starters, "From level 29-30 I went through over 1000 Pokéballs. Literally." That's a tremendous number of Pokéballs considering how few you earn from visiting Pokéstops (a few at best), and it's apparently a measure of increasing difficulty to catch even the lowest level of Pokémon.

Pokemon Go
REUTERS/Mark Kauzlarich

"Once you hit mid-20s, you will start to notice even the most common of Pokémon have an abnormally high chance to evade capture," the level 3o players writes on Reddit. "In no scenario should a 10CP Pidgey/Ratatta/Weedle be able to avoid capture from a level 29 Pokémon trainer, much less avoid it 5-8 times in the same battle (no exaggeration)."

Most importantly, this speaks to the issue of the game's free-to-play nature, and how it could become more insidious over time.

Advertisement

For now, not spending any money to buy more Pokéballs is a possibility. I'm a level 15 and I've never spent any money on anything in the game, but I've recently started running into a situation where my item bag is full of potions/revives/Razz Berries, I'm running out of Pokéballs, and I can't pick up more without throwing out some other items. I could buy a bigger bag using Pokécoins, which I could earn by taking over a gym and holding it for several days, but it's much easier to just spend actual cash on Pokécoins to buy a bigger bag. 

And that's the rub! As we all reach higher levels in "Pokémon GO," we're going to start finding the seams where we can either walk around for hours on a Pokéstop circuit or simply spend actual money on more Pokéballs.

On February 28, Axel Springer, Business Insider's parent company, joined 31 other media groups and filed a $2.3 billion suit against Google in Dutch court, alleging losses suffered due to the company's advertising practices.

Gaming Google Nintendo
Advertisement
Close icon Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. It indicates a way to close an interaction, or dismiss a notification.

Jump to

  1. Main content
  2. Search
  3. Account